The wine and experience|world in Austria's largest winegrowing community Langenlois in the Kamptal was opened on 20 September 2003. The idea for the LOISIUM came from the three Langenlois families Haimerl, Steininger and Nidetzky. They also made parts of their cellar corridors, up to several hundred metres long, available. The LOISIUM is divided into an above-ground area at ground level and an underground area. The above-ground area consists of a futuristic 13-metre-high building in the form of a cube. This stands on the property of the Steininger Karl winery in the middle of the vineyards. The outer skin is made of a shiny aluminium alloy. It was designed as a visitor centre and planned and built by the American architect Steven Holl. It houses a Vinothek Niederösterreich (Lower Austria Wine Shop) as well as a sparkling wine shop at "ex farm prices", offering around 200 wines and 25 sparkling wines from many vintners from the eight Lower Austrian wine-growing regions. Over 50 wines are available for tasting.
In the event and seminar room, wine tastings are held regularly in addition to training activities. From the visitor centre you can enter the underground cellar world, the modern cellar rooms of the Steininger Winery. Here you can enjoy visual and acoustic impressions of the winemaking process in the form of a tour of 15 stations. In the fermentation dome, you can marvel at the process of fermentation from grape must to wine using multimedia, walk through the historic cellar with some 900-year-old corridors with the wines maturing in barrels, and in the labyrinth experience inspiration about old myths from the world of wine, such as the Roman wine god Bacchus.
Image: © LOISIUM Group
